The city was found­ed in 1831 by Mar­tin Boots and David Bran­son who each donat­ed 30 acres of land to devel­op a city by the flow­ing Mis­sissinewa Riv­er, after near­ly 20 years of set­tle­ment fol­low­ing the bloody, vic­to­ri­ous his­toric Bat­tle of the Mis­sissinewa of 1812. Mar­i­on devel­oped slow­ly as an agri­cul­tur­al trad­ing cen­ter with sup­port­ing farm and for­est indus­tries until the 1880s when a huge sup­ply of nat­ur­al gas was dis­cov­ered in Grant Coun­ty and much of east-cen­tral Indi­ana, cre­at­ing the Gas Boom, dras­ti­cal­ly pro­pelling growth, and impact­ing the course of its indus­try and economy.

Mar­i­on and Grant Coun­ty His­to­ri­an, William Munn, led a project with Mar­i­on stu­dents to research and out­line Marion’s his­to­ry. If you would like to read a thor­ough his­to­ry of Mar­i­on, visit:

To learn about the his­to­ry of Grant Coun­ty, Indi­ana, visit:

The Mar­i­on Pub­lic Library and His­to­ry Cen­ter are excel­lent and reli­able sources for infor­ma­tion cov­er­ing mul­ti­ple facets of Marion’s his­to­ry. You may vis­it their loca­tion Mon-Fri 9:00am‑8:00pm, Sat 9:00am‑5:00pm, and Sun 1:00 – 4:00pm. Or, you may vis­it their website.